No props. No costumes. No cover pieces. A three-minute, 10-second time limit.

These are the rules that performance poets normally face when competing in a slam. But once a year, the Toronto Poetry Slam lets loose and makes allowances for props, covers and more. At last night’s Anything Goes Slam at the Drake Hotel Underground, slam performances included a used samosa box, a wedding dress, cover poems originally written by Vancouver’s Fernando Raguero and a collaborative piece by Toronto’s Rust Belt Slam team.

The time-limit penalties were still enforced.

“Tonight was one of the most intriguing slams we’ve pulled off,” said poet/journalist Dave “Big Deal” Silverberg, who has organized the Toronto Poetry Slam since 2005. “People went outside the boundaries of normal slam rules and flexed their creative muscles, giving us a taste of what performance art is all about… It showed that poets can go beyond their comfort zones and challenge themselves.”

Past years’ Anything Goes Slams have gone even further, featuring chicken costumes, PowerPoint presentations and even an infamous incident of nudity.

“The rules help the poets craft great pieces,” Silverberg explained, “and Anything Goes lets them relax and have fun. Here, they can show talent that we might not have seen elsewhere.”

The night wasn’t limited to poets. Beatboxer Scott Jackson — who will represent Canada in the upcoming Beatbox Battle World Championship in Berlin — opened the night with a bravura performance. Acclaimed comedy troupe The Imponderables gave an edgy feature set with everything from simulated sex to a weird game show.

The judges were tough, but the audience loved every minute. Many relative newbies performed in the competition, but there were several familiar faces, such as Krystle Mullin. Mullin asked the judges for scores before her performance and then called up That Brown Bastard (aka. NewsFIX’s own Rahul Gupta), Valentino Assenza and Chicago’s Amy David to improvise poems with the words “apple”, “vodka” and “cunnilingus”.

The final round of the slam included visitors from south of the border. London, Ont. rapper Made Wade faced off against David and California duo Dusty & Mumbles.

Wade led off with a fiery rhyme, accompanied by Jackson’s beatbox, about his attitude towards certain types of women; the performance received 10s from two judges. David followed with a comic poem about the kind of man she wants. Dusty & Mumbles closed with an attempt to improvise in the styles of various poets, with mixed results.

The winner: Wade, who went home with $80.

The next Toronto Poetry Slam is on June 21 at the Drake. More information is available at http://www.torontopoetryslam.com.